Jenny-Wanda Barkmann (30 May 1922 – 4 July 1946) was a German overseer in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. She was tried and executed for crimes against humanity after the war.
Jenny-Wanda Barkmann | |
|---|---|
 Barkmann at the Stutthof trials in 1946 | |
| Born | 30 May 1922 |
| Died | 4 July 1946 (aged 24) |
| Cause of death | Execution by hanging |
| Other names | "Beautiful Spectre" |
| Occupation | Guard of the Stutthof concentration camp |
| Political party | Nazi Party |
| Conviction(s) | Crime against humanity |
| Trial | Stutthof trials |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
Biography
editBarkmann was born in 1922 and is believed to have spent her childhood in Hamburg.
In 1944, she volunteered to the SS as an Aufseherin[1], a concentration camp overseer, in the Stutthof SK-III women's subcamp in Poland, where she brutalized prisoners, some to death. She also selected women and children for the gas chambers[2]. She was so merciless that the women prisoners nicknamed her the "Beautiful Spectre".[2]
Barkmann fled Stutthof and hid out in Gdańsk, where she was arrested at a train station[1] in May 1945 for her criminal wartime acts. In 1946, she became a defendant in the first Stutthof Trial, where she and other defendants were convicted for their crimes at the camp.[2] After she was found guilty she declared, "Life is indeed a pleasure, and pleasures are usually short."[3]
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Barkmann was publicly executed by short-drop hanging along with 10 other defendants from the trial on Biskupia Górka Hill near Gdańsk on 4 July 1946.[4] Former Stutthof prisoners volunteered to conduct the executions. She was 24 years old.[5]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b "Modellnek készült, az egyik legrettegettebb náci fegyőr lett a gyönyörű kísértetnek nevezett nőből". www.evamagazin.hu (in Hungarian). 17 November 2023. Retrieved 21 September 2024.
- ^ a b c "Jenny-Wanda Barkmann Biography". Liberation Route Europe. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
- ^ Stutthof Concentration Camp — Fold3.com – Historical Military Records. Retrieved 3 March 2012.
- ^ Wynn, Stephen (19 April 2020). Holocaust: The Nazis' Wartime Jewish Atrocities. Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-5267-2822-7.
- ^ "1946: Eleven from the Stutthof concentration camp". Executed today. 4 July 2008. Retrieved 22 July 2012.
External links
edit
Media related to Jenny-Wanda Barkmann at Wikimedia Commons
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